Crisis Media Training Seminar/Workshop for Senior Management

Firestorm designs, scripts, conducts and manages hands-on training seminars and workshops for senior management and includes an interactive tabletop test exercises scenario focused on responding to media demands during this crisis. The exercise can be customized, as requested, and will provide an opportunity for your company leadership to learn about the multiple facets of effective media management in the event of a disaster or crisis.

Firestorm’s media training seminars and workshops are typically designed based on:

A high-level review of existing analysis of the vulnerabilities and threats identified by your company management;

Customized Firestorm survey;

Review of the targeted messages developed for the specific stakeholder groups,

Crisis communications plans,

Employee communications plans and regulatory communications plans

Firestorm Media Training Agenda Options

Our options for customized training include the following:

What is a Crisis? – What are the common elements that occur? What are the roles of senior management?

Public Relations – Media Management and ‘Lessons Learned’ from Firestorm’s media management experience at Virginia Tech following the 2007 campus shootings, and other client crisis scenarios – an inside look at how crises develop, and why it is important to have a uniform message and crisis communications plan in place.

Understanding the Needs of the Media – Quick response capabilities are crucial to establishing your company as a source of information for the media during an emergency. Understanding and assessing media needs, constraints and internal media-relations capabilities will be addressed.

Training a Media Communications Spokesperson – A well trained spokesperson, trained in both communications and emergency issues, is a necessary requirement for effective media communications during a crisis. Firestorm will outline characteristics of an effective spokesperson and provide training, drills and a mock press conference.

Interactive Group Test Exercises– Test exercises will give participants an appreciation of how decisions need to be made, both at a strategic and tactical level. Creating predetermined responses to communicate and manage media during a crisis will be covered extensively for this audience.

Personnel Planning– The fundamental building block to having employees perform at work is for them to know their families are safe. There is a high rate of absenteeism among employees and first responders during a crisis.

Q&A

Let us help you implement the right tools and programs for your organization – Learn more today.

Briefs and Recordings

Get the Book

Firestorm founders Harry Rhulen, Suzy Loughlin and Jim Satterfield wrote Disaster Ready People for a Disaster Ready America specifically to address the need for crisis and disaster preparedness at home, and the book has become a cornerstone of many corporate preparedness programs.

Firestorm has worked with hundreds of businesses, organizations and schools to keep tens of thousands of employees, customers and students safer. Firestorm provided crisis management and crisis communications services to Virginia Tech after the shootings, and more recently to Littleton, CO, Roswell, NM and Jefferson County School District in Colorado (location of Columbine) among others.

HEADQUARTERS

In a Crisis now? Call us: 770-643-1114

“What should we do now?” “What should we say?”

How you answer the question “What should we do now?” can have far reaching implications for your company or organization. Preparedness and Resiliency are key brand attributes for every company. Crises come as surprises. Control of events and message are lost. Impacts accelerate. Public scrutiny intensifies.

Are you ready? How do you know? Are you sure?

Most executives are trained to make decisions based upon information, data, and policy.

In a crisis,

Information is generally wrong

Data is not available

Policies do not exist

Command & Control is lost

Brand & reputation are under attack

Leadership is involved and engaged personally

Impacts are disproportional

Events are escalating

Speed is quality or even survival

You are the center of media focus

The above dynamics work aggressively against traditional empirical management decision processes. Decisions must be made quickly with limited and often incorrect information.

A crisis is not business as usual. A crisis is business as unusual.

Crises have a short duration, but have consequences that can determine the viability of a business or organization for years to come. If you are explaining, you are losing.

Crises have impacts – for good and bad. Every crisis starts with a combination of opportunity and danger. Where the risk/crisis conundrum balances depends upon your initial critical decisions, your crisis communications, your monitoring of events, and your adjustments made to strategy and actions as events develop. Your company’s reputation, brand, legacy, and profitability hang in the balance in a crisis. Crises are personal. Every crisis is a human crisis. It is your company. It is your people. It is your brand. It is your reputation. It is your career. Doing the wrong thing or doing nothing can create a point of no return.

We Help Clients Take Control of Crisis

In crisis, we assist senior management in developing or implementing a Crisis Management Plan. We provide advice and insight to help managers make crucial decisions, and communication experts to assist with social media communications and public relations. Our Senior Team is ready to help your senior team.

Don’t Let Your First Response Become Your Second Crisis

As the leading crisis management company, our founders, executives, principals, and Executive Council are available to assist as needed. We put together the right team for you.

Call Us Today for a free assessment and discover how we can help in calm and in crisis. 770-643-1114